In Memorium – Rabbi Hank Skirball z”l (1929-2022)
The world and the Reform Movement lost a giant this week. ARZA and the Reform Movement mourns the loss of Rabbi Hank Skirball who passed away in Israel on Rosh HaShanah at the age of 93.
Rabbi Skirball was one of the great leaders of the Reform Movement and an ardent Zionist. Originally from Boston, he and his wife Sheba and their family came on Aliyah to Israel in 1971.
He was a scholar, a teacher, a visionary, leader, and most of all a mentsch who always made time for any student. He was instrumental in building the NFTY in Israel, EIE/Heller High, and CAY programs, as well as helping to build and grow the Reform Movement in Israel serving as a mentor to so many of today’s leaders and rabbis.
A graduate of Harvard, Rabbi Skirball received a doctorate from Columbia as well as an honorary doctorate and the presidential medallion from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He was a member of the faculties of Northwestern University and the HUC-JIR. He was National Director of the North American Federation of Temple Youth, the Association of Jewish Youth Directors of North America and advisor of the North American Jewish Youth Council.
Hank was instrumental in growing our immersive programs in Israel, building our NFTY in Israel summer trips, and together with some of his agitational contemporaries founded the NFTY-EIE (now Heller High) program in 1962.
I remember fondly both having had the chance to learn Talmud with him and challenge him on the fundamentals of Reform Judaism. As
high school students, we would often march in to his office and play “stump Hank” believing that there was simply nothing he didn’t know.
As Hank led so much of our youth work, steeping us in ideology and passion, as a Reform Rabbi he served as Chair of the Department of Education and Culture of the World Zionist Organization.
In November of 2013, Rabbi Bennett Miller and I had a chance to sit down with Rabbi Skirball for a video recorded interview.
The last question I asked him was as follows:
Why should Israel be important to a Reform Jew?
He answered without hesitation:
“Israel, purely by numbers is the largest Jewish center in the world, and soon it will have more Jews than all of the Diaspora communities put together. Unlike in ancient times when there were two centers of Jewish life – Babylon and Israel – Israel is the center of Jewish life. Unlike in the Diaspora, where Jews are not in the majority, here we are in the majority and we have to take responsibility and ‘put our money where our mouth is!’ Here we are responsible for streets and sanitation, for education, healthcare, the water and electric systems, etc… and here is where Judaism gets played out…”
He paused and thought for a moment, and continued:
“This is the place we’ve been dreaming of for two thousand years, so you should come here, and if you’re not going to come here at least support it. It used to be that people would come three times a year on pilgrimage to Jerusalem… now it would be remarkable if Jews came once every three years.”
We mourn the loss of a visionary, a scholar, and a great leader of our Movement and our People.
Rabbi Hank Skirball was laid to rest on Thursday, September 29 –ד’ תשרי at Kibbutz Maalei HaHamisha in the Judean Hills outside of Jerusalem.
May his Memory Be for A Blessing – יהי זכרו ברוך
